American Flag Etiquette

[FuBgMD]

Does anyone else find these procedures to be among the strangest demands we humans have yet devised? I just watched a thing on local TV about a recent school board controversy, and at the end all these old American Legion-looking gentlemen got up and started folding the flags so very carefully. I went online and found that flag etiquette is actually US Federal Law, albeit with no penalty for noncompliance. But still, the whole little ritual thing strikes me as bizarre.

[Plognark]

Does anyone else find these procedures to be among the strangest demands we humans have yet devised? I just watched a thing on local TV about a recent school board controversy, and at the end all these old American Legion-looking gentlemen got up and started folding the flags so very carefully. I went online and found that flag etiquette is actually US Federal Law, albeit with no penalty for noncompliance. But still, the whole little ritual thing strikes me as bizarre.

I had to do color guard in the Navy for a while. I didn't know it was federal law. Weird.

Anyway, it's a respect and honor thing. Certainly not the strangest behavior I've ever seen humans undertake. :)

[FuBgMD]

Does anyone else find these procedures to be among the strangest demands we humans have yet devised? I just watched a thing on local TV about a recent school board controversy, and at the end all these old American Legion-looking gentlemen got up and started folding the flags so very carefully. I went online and found that flag etiquette is actually US Federal Law, albeit with no penalty for noncompliance. But still, the whole little ritual thing strikes me as bizarre.

I had to do color guard in the Navy for a while. I didn't know it was federal law. Weird.

Anyway, it's a respect and honor thing. Certainly not the strangest behavior I've ever seen humans undertake. :)

I have never been able to get my head around concepts like 'honor' when it comes to things like 'your country' (or in this case, its flag). Even when I was in Boy Scouts, a short and painful misadventure that was horribly incongruent with my unwillingness to accept authority, I found saying the Scout Oath to be absurd. It reads:

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

Why am I honoring my country, and not the rest of the world? Surely, there are contributions from other parts of the world that have contributed to freedom and the lifestyle that I currently enjoy. Why are they not mentioned? Why do political boundaries even warrant this kind of respect? Or ethnicity for that matter? People speak of being 'proud to be an American' or 'proud of my hispanic heritage' etc. etc. Why is it okay to be proud of your ethnic or political heritage, but less well accepted to be proud of the contributions made by all the great men and women who share your hair color? Is there a difference?

I don't mean to sound combative at all; maybe these cultural practices have merit and I'm totally missing the whole point :huh:

[WWJD4aKlondikeBar]

Surely, there are contributions from other parts of the world that have contributed to freedom and the lifestyle that I currently enjoy.Yeah, it's called China and they made about half of the objects that you've looked at today. ;)

[ghetto astronaut]

Nationalism in general is stupid.

You can't have any meaningful sentiment by forcing these things anyway.

[Cross_]

and at the end all these old American Legion-looking gentlemen got up and started folding the flags so very carefully. I went online and found that flag etiquette is actually US Federal Law, albeit with no penalty for noncompliance. But still, the whole little ritual thing strikes me as bizarre.

Rituals can be nice & soothing things, so I can certainly see that this would be important to the people you mentioned. The important thing is that they are allowed to pray to their flag while others are allowed to burn it (though neither action makes much sense to me).

[KeithJM]

I don't show any respect to any flag, the only allegiance I will honor is my allegiance to humanity, and I do that through right action.

[Fr. Gottisttot]

Apparently it means a lot more to older folks, particularly those who served in WWII/Korea/Vietnam. Both of my grandfathers fought in the Korean War and they're very big on respecting the flag "that they fought for".

From what I gather, it's not so much the flag itself that's a big deal, it's what the flag represents. To them, letting the flag get wet/dirty/not take it down at night/not folding it right (exactly like a paper football btw) is demonstrating disrespect for their comrades and for ideals like justice and liberty.

[KeithJM]

Apparently it means a lot more to older folks, particularly those who served in WWII/Korea/Vietnam. Both of my grandfathers fought in the Korean War and they're very big on respecting the flag "that they fought for".

From what I gather, it's not so much the flag itself that's a big deal, it's what the flag represents. To them, letting the flag get wet/dirty/not take it down at night/not folding it right (exactly like a paper football btw) is demonstrating disrespect for their comrades and for ideals like justice and liberty.

I support ideas like justice and liberty just as much as anyone else. I'm also a veteran of the USAF. You don't need to honor a flag to share those values.

[Goathead]

There talking of changing the Oz falg (still) but i dont see why.

If we tried, it would end up in a phone poll and the winner would be a hot-pink flag with rusel crowe eating a meat pie while punching out a wallaby.

Others say its our heritage.

I say its a flag, ill fight for my country but for sme cloth?

[Bender]

I'm in the air force, I don't get it either.

[Ezkerraldean]

that's ridiculous!

why do you have to show so much respect for your country and its symbols just because you were born there?

[mongrel]

I had to do color guard in the Navy for a while. I didn't know it was federal law. Weird.

I did Colours/Sunset Party, as most do, in the RAN. I didn't get all the rigmarole either.

Perhaps the most odd rule I know of, and I dunno if it's the same in the USN, but if one of our flags or ensigns touched the ground during Colours/Sunset, it had to be discarded and replaced.

[Plognark]

I had to do color guard in the Navy for a while. I didn't know it was federal law. Weird.

I did Colours/Sunset Party, as most do, in the RAN. I didn't get all the rigmarole either.

Perhaps the most odd rule I know of, and I dunno if it's the same in the USN, but if one of our flags or ensigns touched the ground during Colours/Sunset, it had to be discarded and replaced.

That was a rule to. I'll be honest and say we weren't real strict about following that one. We weren't exactly the best color guard to ever be assembled by the USN.

The weirdest thing I ever heard was certainly a myth, but supposedly every flag pole ball cap was supposed to contain a match, a bullet, and a folded piece of paper with some instructions.

The instructions stated that the match was to burn the flag if you let it hit the ground. The bullet was to shoot yourself in the head afterwards for your failure.

Creepy nationalism in action! :D

Like I said, it's obviously bullshit, but the ideas behind it is still pretty strange.

[Ace]

Being proud of or loving your country/hometown/local community is no stranger than being proud of or loving your parents. You didn't get to choose where or to whom you were born. Obviously, your pride or love will depend on your treatment by your parents and the community you grew up in. Respect, love, and pride should not automatically be given (thus the flaw with rules like "Honor thy father" or country for that matter that provide no context). If your parents/your community supported you or you feel you received many opportunities from them, you are probably going to feel good about them. If they treated you poorly, you probably won't.

[mongrel]

That was a rule to. I'll be honest and say we weren't real strict about following that one. We weren't exactly the best color guard to ever be assembled by the USN.

The weirdest thing I ever heard was certainly a myth, but supposedly every flag pole ball cap was supposed to contain a match, a bullet, and a folded piece of paper with some instructions.

The instructions stated that the match was to burn the flag if you let it hit the ground. The bullet was to shoot yourself in the head afterwards for your failure.

Creepy nationalism in action! :D

Like I said, it's obviously bullshit, but the ideas behind it is still pretty strange.

Ah, my faded memory is creeping back! I forgot we had the same rule of burning the flag, but I don't recall anything quite as strange as having to shoot yourself. I'm rather glad, to be honest, since the way I found out was when I let the Australian White Ensign touch the ground one morning. It seems we weren't overly strict on the rules, either...:D

[Jet Black]

I have so many funny stories about flags, from upsetting people by insulting them and shooting them (and hence upsetting other people) back when I was a youngster. Flags of all nationalities including my own, none were above us.

[Jet Black]

Perhaps the most odd rule I know of, and I dunno if it's the same in the USN, but if one of our flags or ensigns touched the ground during Colours/Sunset, it had to be discarded and replaced.

at scouts* when we lowered the flag, it would nearly always get hammered into the floor, crudely folded and then stuffed into a box until the following week.

*totally different in the UK. god did not feature.

[Cross_]

I have so many funny stories about flags, from upsetting people by insulting them and shooting them (and hence upsetting other people) back when I was a youngster.
You shot people ??? :eek:

[Perm]

I think the idea is that you're *doing* something to honor the ideas/values/sacrifice that others have given the country, isn't it? My great grandparents had a daily ritual of putting up/taking down the flag, and it always confused me as well.

On one hand, I like the idea that I don't just give "liberty" and "freedom" lip service by saying "Those are values I respect.", instead, one could demonstrate they have studied flag etiquette and show care in handling it, and sort of "show" they cared enough to learn.

On the other hand, it's *how* you live every day that matters, not what meaningless rituals you've committed to memory.

Not sure what my final verdict is on this one... I tend to find the whole idea of nationalism and flags silly, but sometimes I think it's nice that people care that much about something they feel honors/represents something special.

*shrug*

[J-D]

It seems to be in the nature of human beings (or at any rate many of them) that rituals are important to them. And so long as the rituals don't do any actual harm, I think the courteous thing is to respect the ones that are important to other people. But I don't expect other people necessarily to find any particular rituals important to them. Making rituals compulsory is what I think is wrong. If flag rituals are important to you, I've got no problem with that, and I'll respect your observance of them, but you've got no reason to expect observance of them to be important to me.

My father served in the Second World War and assured me that the flag had nothing to do with it as far as he was concerned.

I do feel, however, that if you're going to have a flag it should something distinctive. There are so many flags with stripes, for example, that I can never remember which one is which. On the other hand, because there's only one flag with a leaf on it, and only one with a lion, and only one with a dragon, and only one with I Ching symbols, I never have any trouble remembering which countries they stand for. On this basis, I think it would be a good move to have no flag if you were the only country that had no flag. Then, when your medallist stands on the Olympic podium, people all round the world would watch on television and say 'Why is there nothing going up the flagpole?' and somebody else would say 'Oh, that's for Australia, they have no flag.' You couldn't get more memorable than that, so long as you were the only country that did it.

[Ace]

That certainly would solve the whole flag burning issue. Here's something I've always wondered: where do the people who burn US flags outside of America exactly get those flags? The local flag shop? Do they make them by hand? That's got a be a pain with the 50 stars...

...and then when they burn some obscure flag like the Danish or Norwegian flag, they have to go look it up to figure out how to make it. Unless of course, there is a local flag shop.

[BriAnna]

<this is getting very political> off to pest

[Veovis]

That certainly would solve the whole flag burning issue. Here's something I've always wondered: where do the people who burn US flags outside of America exactly get those flags? The local flag shop? Do they make them by hand? That's got a be a pain with the 50 stars...

They'll usually just approximate.

http://www.subcontinent.com/sapra/research/terrorism/media/jehad_peshawar.jpg

[Mike Rosoft]

The weirdest thing I ever heard was certainly a myth, but supposedly every flag pole ball cap was supposed to contain a match, a bullet, and a folded piece of paper with some instructions.

The instructions stated that the match was to burn the flag if you let it hit the ground. The bullet was to shoot yourself in the head afterwards for your failure.

There are various misconceptions about the U.S. flag, but I have never heard of this absurdity. Obviously, it's a combination of two claims, both of them false.

The first claim: should the flag touch the ground, it has become unfit for display and must be burned. In fact, even though the flag respect code says that "the flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise" and "when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, [it] should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning", it doesn't say that touching the ground makes the flag unfit for display. There's nothing in the code that prevents the flag from being adjusted so that it no longer touches the ground or other items. Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/holidays/flagday/burnflag.asp).

The second one is that the ball at the top of the flag pole (or a hidden container at its base) contains items for the last soldier defending it to destroy the flag, and then commit suicide instead of allowing himself captured. This is also just a legend; if for no other reason, then because in the prospect of impending capture, soldiers have more important things to do than ritually destroy a flag. Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/military/flagball.htm).


Mike Rosoft

[They]

I thought it was obvious why each country has a flag. It's so you don't accidentally play for the wrong team at the Olympics.